The EU and Albania's common fight

By Fron Nahzi 

 

 

 

The EU could do much to help Albania's new government tackle corruption.

This week Albania will get a new government, run by Edi Rama, head of the Socialist Party. Will Rama succeed where his predecessors failed and lead Europe's least-developed country to membership in the European Union?  

Rama's first three decisions give some hope. He appointed a new generation of ministers. He increased the number of women in senior government posts. And, most crucially, he declared war on organised crime and corruption, which the EU has highlighted as a barrier to candidacy status.  

The outcome of this declared war is the key, both for Albania's democracy and its membership in the EU. For years, organised crime has impeded the country's political and economic growth. Today, with an apparently eager partner, the EU should offer its active support to battle corruption and uproot criminal groups – the problem is Albania's and Europe's alike.  

Albania's crime networks work through front businesses that seem to be operating legally but actually support trafficking in narcotics and people. Reports from the United States and European governments, as well as independent watchdogs, have linked construction companies, fuel distributors and other large enterprises in Albania to known mafia bosses. These enterprises bribe government officials, judges, police and custom officials, and members of the media. They have blocked the application of laws, policies and reforms that might end their monopolies and illegal activities. They actively thwart the establishment of the rule of law, which the EU has stipulated as a condition for Albania's membership. They stymie reform of the public administration. They dampen economic development.  

EU and US officials know all this. The European Commission's Albania progress reports have repeatedly faulted Tirana for failing to implement reforms to combat corruption and organised crime, failing to ensure an independent judiciary, and failing to defend freedom of expression in the media.  

These failings are not due to a lack of proper laws and policies. For decades, high-placed European Commission experts have been helping Tirana draft laws that meet European standards. The problem lies in the lack of political will of successive Albanian governments to apply these laws.    

To give Rama and his new government a fighting chance against organised crime, the EU anti-corruption policy needs to go from containment to eradication. Rama's government must be encouraged and supported to go after Albania's mafia bosses.  

Rama's early moves suggest that he might do this. He reached beyond the inner party circles to appoint young, new technocrats as government ministers. He demanded that all ministers declare and sell off their business assets. This breaks the traditional symbiosis between businesses and government in a country where government positions are often considered get-rich-quick opportunities.  

Such moves are not without risk. In Albania, nothing brings political rivals together more quickly than a threat to their profits.  

If Rama moves too quickly and ineffectively against mafia bosses, the result might be an unholy alliance between his arch enemy, the ousted Sali Berisha and his Democratic Party, and members of Rama's coalition with ties to organised crime. This would threaten his government and ensure that Albania remains a mafia state.  

To triumph over organised crime, Rama needs the EU to help him break the conventional, mechanical anti-corruption strategies that focus on trying to change the culture of corruption. They must launch a frontal assault on the local and international mafia bosses, including, perhaps prosecutions in EU countries that could not be undertaken in Albania given the weak judiciary. Only bold steps will put a stop to organised crime and bring Albania a step closer to joining the European family.  

Fron Nahzi is a writer specialising in international development. His articles have been published in leading newspapers in Europe, US, Asia and Africa.